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10/12/12

10 Most Extreme Places on Earth

Here
is a list of the most extreme places on Earth! From the hottest to the
coldest place, from the highest to the lowest and many more!

Lut Desert (Iran): hottest place on Earth at 159 °F (71 °C)

There
is a big discussion about the hottest spot on Earth. Many believe it is
in Al Azizyah, Libya, with a recorded temperature of 136 degrees
Fahrenheit (57.8 Celsius), and the second hottest place being in Death
Valley, California, USA, where it got up to 134 Fahrenheit in 1913. But
according to other sites, a NASA satellite recorded surface temperatures
as high as 71 °C (159 °F) in the Lut desert of Iran, supposedly the
hottest temperature ever recorded on the surface of Earth. This region,
which covers an area of about 480 kilometers, is called Gandom Beriyan
(the toasted wheat).

Almost
everyone knows that Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world.
Climbers from everywhere travel to Everest hoping to earn the
distinction of climbing the "World's Highest". The peak of Mount Everest
is 8,848 meters (29,028 feet) above sea level. This high elevation
gives Mount Everest the distinction of being the mountain with the
highest altitude.

But not many people know about Mt Chimborazo in
Ecuador with an altitude of 6,310 meters (20,703 feet), which is less
than Mount Everest; however, Chimborazo has the distinction of being the
highest mountain above Earth's center. This is because Earth is not a
sphere - it is an oblate spheroid. As an oblate spheroid, Earth is
widest at its equator. Chimborazo is just one degree south of Earth's
equator and at that location it is 6,384 kilometers from Earth's center
or about 2 kilometers farther from Earth's center than Mount Everest.

Tristan de Cunha (UK): most remote inhabited archipelago on Earth at 2,000 miles from the nearest continent

The
most remote inhabited island group in the world, Tristan de Cunha in
the southern Atlantic Ocean, is so tiny its main island has no airstrip.
Home to 272 people sharing just 8 surnames, inhabitants suffer from
hereditary complaints like asthma and glaucoma. Annexed by the United
Kingdom in the 1800s, the island's inhabitants have a British postal
code and, while they can order things online, it takes a very long time
for their orders to arrive. But then, that's the trade off for having
your own island settlement some 2,000 miles from the nearest continent.
(Link | Photo)

Angel
Falls (Salto Ángel) in Venezuela is the highest waterfall in the world.
The falls are 3230 feet in height with an uninterrupted drop of 2647
feet. Angel Falls are located on a tributary of the Rio Caroni. The
falls are formed when the tributary stream falls from the top of
Auyantepui (a tepui is a flat-topped structure surrounded by cliffs -
similar to a mesa).

Oymyakon
is a village in Oymyakonsky Ulus of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located
along the Indigirka River, 30 kilometers (20 mi) northwest of Tomtor on
the Kolyma Highway. The population is 800 people. Oymyakon is known as
one of the candidates for the Northern Pole of Cold, because on January
26, 1926, a temperature of −71.2 °C (−96.2 °F) was recorded there. This
is the lowest recorded temperature for any permanently inhabited
location on Earth. It is also the lowest temperature recorded in the
Northern hemisphere.

The lowest temperature ever recorded on Earth was -129 °F in 1983, at the Russian Base Vostok in Antarctica.

The Dry Valleys (Antarctica): driest place on Earth

One
interior region of the Antarctic is known as The Dry Valleys. These
valleys have not seen rainfall in over two million years. With the
exception of one valley, whose lakes are briefly filled with water by
inland flowing rivers during the summer, the Dry Valleys contain no
moisture (water, ice, or snow). The reasons why the Dry Valleys exist
are the 200 mph Katabatic down winds which evaporate all moisture. The
dry valleys are strange: except for a few steep rocks they are the only
continental part of Antarctica devoid of ice. Located in the
Trans-Antarctic Range, they correspond to a mountain area where
evaporation (or rather, sublimation) is more important than snowfall,
thus all the ice disappears, leaving dry barren land.

Another
driest place is the Atacama Desert in Chile, some parts of which have
received absolutely zero precipitation in centuries. Parts of the
Atacama Desert may actually exceed the dryness of most of Antarctica,
though data from the latter is insufficient to tell.

Challenger
Deep in the Mariana Trench (or Marianas Trench) is the deepest point in
Earth's oceans. The bottom there is 10,924 meters (35,840 feet) below
sea level. If Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth, were placed
at this location it would be covered by over one mile of water. The only
people to have ever explored this trench were Jacques Piccard and Don
Walsh. At the bottom they were seven miles down and all around them
eight tons of pressure. They observed fish, shrimp and other creatures
living on the bottom of the sea floor. (Link | Photo)

Cherrapunji (India): wettest place on Earth

Cherrapunji,
North-Eastern India is thought for many years to be the wettest place
in the world. Here 10,820mm rain falls on average in a year. Unlike
Colombia where the rain falls throughout the whole year, Cherrapunji
gets most of its rain during the 'south-west monsoon', or wet season,
between June and August. Cherrapunji does hold the record for the
wettest month on record, recording 9,296mm in July 1861. Actually,
between 1860 and 1862 Cherrapunji was incredibly wet; between August 1st
1860 and July 31st 1861 (which overlaps parts of 2 wet seasons)
26,467mm rain fell. In the calendar year 1861 22,987mm rain fell, of
which 22,454 fell between April and September.

Mount Thor (Canada): Earth's greatest vertical drop

Mount
Thor, in Auyuittuq National Park on Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada,
presents a 4,100 foot pure vertical drop. Mt. Thor is Canada's most
famous peak, and it's made of pure granite. It's a favorite of thrill
seekers and climbers. Mount Thor was first climbed in 1953 by an Arctic
Institute of North America team. There have been a few recent rappel
expeditions, with one fatality in 2006. (Link)

The
Dead Sea is the lowest elevation on Earth's surface on dry land, its
surface and shores are 422 meters (1,385 ft) below sea level. On the
border of Jordan and Israel, the road around the Dead Sea also happens
to be the lowest road on Earth. Famous for its salinity (over ten times
that of the Mediterranean Sea), the Dead Sea is said to be home of the
first health retreat. Because of the extreme salt content, no life can
survive in the sea, hence the name.